I'm sure this was true, but I was surprised to see the NVA using artillery, walking it in, and fighting from fixed position using machine gun nests. I always thought they were primarily jungle fighters and fought guerrilla style.
You may walk on the beach, you may swim in the ocean... under SWAT team surveillance, of course.
You're thinking of the VC
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The NVA were the conventional and highly trained army of North Vietnam. They had modern weapons from Russia and China. The only times they would fight in pitched battles was when they held the high ground like that. However, most of the original force on Hamburger Hill got away into Laos. They did fight guerrilla style with out gunned or out numbered, but when they had an advantage they would attack. 85% of the battles in Vietnam were started by the enemy. They tried to fight in a conventional battle in the Ia Drang valley. That battle shaped their strategy. They learned that fighting against America in pitched battle, with America have a HUGE advantage of firepower from air power to ground power, that they would only fight when they could get close enough to the Americans to make the firepower unusable.
The Viet Cong were the insurgents from S. Vietnam. They were guerrilla fighters all the way. Hit and run tactics. They were known for their ability to ambush or set booby traps and then blend in with the natives. They had no uniforms to distinguish them. So American assumed every civilian could be Viet Cong. Thankfully when they chose to fight out of their element in the large conventional battle of Tet they were completely wiped out for the rest of the war.
Haters gonna hate
And the NLF and PAVN were both controlled by Hanoi.
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